• John Jackson Miller divines the direct-market sales figures from February, comparing them to previous years: “While losing ground against the same month in 2008, the month nonetheless looks to be in range with many other dead quarter months this decade. Notably, Top 300 unit sales, while down 10% versus last February, were up 5% over February 2004 — and only about a quarter of a million copies below the same category in February 1999.”

• Todd Allen crafts a scenario in which “a few current industry trends are taken to their logical conclusion,” leading to the collapse of the direct market.

• Anime Insider‘s (former) Tokyo correspondent, Andrez Bergen, learned of the magazine’s abrupt closing from an anime-company representative … who read about it online. Needless to say, Bergen isn’t happy: “I now have to swallow the remains of my shredded-up pride and apologize to several dozen other anime companies in Japan for promises that’ll never now be honoured, and a series of articles and interviews that will never be printed.”